The unbridled force of rage known as The Hulk protects New Yorkers in an all-new, explosive and action-packed epic of one of the most popular Super Heroes of all .

Photo: Rhythm & Hues, Universal Pictures

The unbridled force of rage known as The Hulk protects New Yorkers...

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Dr. Bruce Banner (EDWARD NORTON) explores the lab with Dr. Betty Ross (LIV TYLER) in an all-new, explosive and action-packed epic of one of the most popular Super Heroes of all time?THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Credit: Michael Gibson

Sequels are so 20th century. So are remakes. What we're getting now are do-overs. Two years ago we got a new "Superman." Next month we get "The Dark Knight," which will be the second in a new series of "Batman" movies. Even an old-schooler like Sylvester Stallone got into the spirit earlier this year, with a second movie called "Rambo." The reason this can be done is the target audience for these movies is so young that a few years in the past feels to them like ancient history.

But at least they got this do-over right. "The Incredible Hulk," the second adaptation this decade of the Marvel comic-book story, is a big improvement over 2003's "Hulk," which was directed by Ang Lee. He tried to make a thinking person's action movie, but ended up with a film suffering from multiple-personality syndrome, part dull and earnest, part mindless and violent. "The Incredible Hulk," by contrast, embraces its identity as a sci-fi-summer-action-blockbuster extravaganza. Along the way, it actually comes close to finding the balance that Lee was looking for.

The result is not as good as "Iron Man," but it's an action movie in that style, willing to take its time and take advantage of the fact that it has a first-rate actor at its center.

As a concession to the existence of the previous "Hulk" movie - though every aspect of it, from the look and the casting on down has been reconceived - we find Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) as a man already coping with his hulkness. Like Dr. Jekyll or a someone in 12-step recovery, Bruce is just trying to get by, one day at a time, working in a Brazilian bottling plant by day and taking private classes in anger management and self-discipline. He knows that if he gets angry, if his heart rate gets up to 200, he will turn into a tremendous green muscle man and start taking apart everything and everybody.

But Bruce is a man on the run. He may want to slip beneath the radar and live with his condition until he can be cured, but the U.S. government - in the person of General Ross (William Hurt) - has other ideas. The Army wants to study Bruce and figure out the science behind what's happening to him, so as to create other Hulks. They want to weaponize the Hulk technology.

"The Incredible Hulk" is a chase movie, in a sense, but it's not all about running. There are quiet interludes and genuinely poignant moments that don't feel forced or phony but organic to the study. The movie benefits from an unguarded purity of essence that Liv Tyler brings to the role of Betty, Bruce's ex-girlfriend and true love; and Norton grounds the whole movie in his matter-of-fact understanding of Bruce's predicament. He plays him as stoic, realistic and full of regrets that he has learned to ignore just to get through the day. A key moment comes early in the movie, in which Bruce, following a Hulk episode, wakes up almost naked in Guatemala. It could have been a joke scene. It's not. It could have been overplayed for sympathy. It isn't. He's just a man with a problem, and we sympathize.

Credit must go to Norton (who also co-wrote the screenplay) but also to director Louis Leterrier, for his intelligent sense of proportion. Here there's no disconnect between the Hulk and Bruce. They are still the same man, and Leterrier keeps reminding us gently of Bruce's physical vulnerability, through shots such as the one of Norton's white, thin back, as he lay exhausted. His strain is almost unbearable.

Leterrier's intelligence and balance extends to the casting. Of course, he gets the big roles right - Hurt as the ruthless general, Tim Roth as the head of his assault team - but he also does well with the smaller ones: Lou Ferrigno (TV's Hulk) as a security guard, Paul Soles as a wise old restaurateur, and Ty Burrell as Betty's psychiatrist boyfriend. Best of all there's Tim Blake Nelson, who brings a blast of energy to his role as a scientist so intellectually engaged, so carried away with his ideas, that he's borderline crazy - not a mad scientist, but one step before that.

Meanwhile, casually, almost incidentally, a fairly serious idea slips through. This Hulk technology could set broken bones in minutes. It could regenerate cells. It could reverse spinal injury and maybe cure cancer, and yet what would happen if such technology existed? Picture armies of Hulks, all killing each other.